Chaste as Ice, Pure as Snow: A Novel

by C. Despard

"It was into such a darkness that he went out," she murmured. "Oh, my darling! my darling!"

And then she turned, and began to feel with a certain creeping sense of uneasiness that the house was very still. She drew down the blind with a hasty impulse. The outside world made her think too painfully of that wanderer in his first desolation. Alas! he would have recovered from that—perhaps he was even rejoicing in his liberty. The thought was too bitter. She felt her overstrained mind must have relief. A book might bring it, so she rose to ring for lights.

But before she could reach the bell-handle the door opened slowly, stealthily, as if ashamed of its own creaking, and a figure that in the half darkness she did not recognize crossed to the window, and taking a seat gazed at her across the interval of shadow. There was something defiant in the action, and for a moment Margaret was frightened. Who was this that had dared to intrude upon her?

But she and her landlady were alone in the house. Her fears, she told herself, were puerile; crossing the dark room, she looked her intruder in the face. By the faint light which still struggled through the window-blind she recognized Jane Rodgers. But could she be right? Was not this rather a distorted creature of her own imagination that had taken the landlady's face and features to mock her? This being was very unlike the quiet and eminently respectable landlady, for the face was so livid that it seemed to gleam out of the darkness, the eyes were wild and lurid, and the lips and tongue seemed to be moving convulsively, as though the woman were agitated with burning thirst.

Margaret started back in momentary alarm; but she was naturally brave—she would assure herself that this was no dream conjured up by a diseased imagination, but actual, living flesh and blood. She put her hand on her landlady's shoulder. "Jane," she said, "is this you? My good woman, what is wrong? Has the storm alarmed you?"

Her touch was flung off with such violence that she staggered and nearly fell, for the torrent of this woman's wrath and hatred had been so long suppressed that now no bounds would hold it. "Leave me alone!" she cried. "How dare you put a finger on me? No," with a wild laugh as Margaret retreated quietly to the door. She thought the woman was mad, and so Jane was in a sense. "I've turned the key. We're alone together, at last, my fine lady; you shall hear me out; you shall know what's in my power—what I'll do, by ——! It's a fine night, dark as pitch; a body could be easily put out of the way—made quiet and then tossed out there!"

She lifted the blind, and even as she did so came a lurid flash. It showed the outside tumult, the black, restless waves, seeming in their unrest to hunger for a victim, and for one moment it showed in bold relief what was more dreadful still, a dark human face distorted with hideous passion. The eyes of the landlady seemed to be starting from their sockets, her strong sinewy hands were clenched, her body was stooping forward; the attitude was that of a cat about to spring upon its prey. Margaret saw and shrank back in sudden terror, the sight was so repulsive. But she recovered herself. They were woman to woman. Why should she fear? Again she touched the landlady on the shoulder. "Jane," she said in a low voice that trembled in spite of her strong effort to be calm, "you must be mad or dreaming. What does all this mean?"

"It means ——." The woman hissed one word into her ear, and then for the first time Margaret realized her position. She had not much physical strength, for the severe mental struggles through which she had been passing had slowly but surely sapped at the springs of her life. Alone! She had thought of it with sadness only a few moments since; now she felt herself alone, and in the power of a hatred rendered strong and brutal by human passion. In the presence of the dark reality her small remnant of strength deserted her. She felt weak and faint with sheer terror of what might be before her.

In one moment it all seemed to flash upon her—the horror, the mystery, the sickening details. She closed her eyes and instinctively cried out for help to the one Presence that alone was near her in this awful moment. The lightning flashed in again upon the strange scene. It showed her kneeling, with clasped hands and calm face and eyes raised up to heaven.

Heaven! God! We think of them little in our hours of peace and gladness, but in the storm-sounds, in the terrors of darkness, in physical weakness brought home to our souls, perhaps we are all somewhat alike. Weak women and strong, self-dependent men instinctively look up, involuntarily call on the awful name. How often, how often, the Name has proved a Power! Even in this case it seemed for a moment effectual.